Christmas Puzzle 2025

Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary .......

This year marks the 36th annual Christmas Puzzle I have set to raise money for charities. The Puzzle receives entries from Australia, New Zealand, Cyprus, Malta and Ireland as well as from the UK. The Puzzle should appeal to people who enjoy solving quality newspaper crossword puzzles and this one is designed to help you finish - the Puzzle has an underlying theme so that, when things start to get a bit tough, you should get more information to help you. Over the years the Puzzle has raised almost £150,000 distributed amoung over 100 good causes, including donations totalling £8,000 last year.

As usual, I will forward all the money you donate, except for the prize-money, to charity. The resulting money raised will be distributed equally between

Thames Valley Air Ambulance, Royal Hospital for Neuro-disability, The Therapy Garden, Canal & River Trust, and St Mary's Church, Eaton Bray where I am the Reader.

All the charities have been nominated by Puzzlers from the UK. I do hope you will be generous in your donations, supporting the work of these charities.

-- Gordon Gray, October 2025

Navigation around the Christmas Puzzle website

Clicking the Christmas Puzzle logo will always bring you back to this home page.

Using the links along the top of the page, you can

• download this year's puzzle
  -- (between 8 December 2025 and 25 January 2026)
• register to receive a copy of all future puzzles by email,
• see information about last year's winners and charitable donations,
• view some of your comments on the puzzle from previous years,
• view some unusual words (and their meanings!) from previous puzzles,
• view the rolls of honour for the last 3, 5, 10 and 20 years,
• view your results from previous years.
• Read and comment on the Christmas Puzzle blog.

-- This year's puzzle will be available to download from 8 December 2025 --